Boston Premiere of New 4K Restoration!

Among the boldest accomplishments of Hong Kong cinema’s golden age, this uniquely visceral martial-arts movie puts a gritty new spin on the story of the one-armed swordsman, an iconic figure from the moment he was introduced by the Shaw Brothers studio in 1967. Composed in a whirlwind of immersive close-ups and fractured editing, THE BLADE follows the young sword-maker Ding On (Zhao), who, after losing an arm in an ambush, transforms himself into a furious avenger. With its intentionally disorienting stylization and starkly brutal tone, THE BLADE was a rare commercial disappointment for Tsui Hark, but it has since been reclaimed as one of the director’s most radical visions—a tour de force of action expressionism, and a scathing reappraisal of the wuxia genre’s code of masculinity, that achieves a feverish intensity. – Criterion Collection